Driving Home
It wasn’t a forever goodbye, but it was a significant one. A landmark in the vast valley of goodbyes mothers make. You expect a little tug when you first leave them with a babysitter, when the doors of their kindergarten school bus close behind backpacks too big for their little bodies, when they flip the […]
Mauve Sheets and Almonds
This weekend, George was invited to play in a Mendelssohn octet at the Toledo Museum of Art. I had just moved a state away for my brand new job, and I made the first of what will be many decisions to not drive back to Ohio. It was not an easy decision. It will never […]
Clarity in the Silence
In her “Misfit’s Manifesto,” the brilliant Lidia Yuknavitch states, “I am not the story you made of me.” Narratives are interesting. A different lens, an alternative look, and the story goes in a totally different direction. New eyes, an added perspective, another firsthand account. No story line is ever set in stone. When I was […]
In the Quiet Spaces
some people when they hear your story. contract. others upon hearing your story, expand. and this is how you know ~ Nayyirah Waheed It’s been over seven months since I came out. Long enough to cry a few tears. Long enough to laugh with inhibition. Long enough to learn a lesson or two. Long enough […]
My No-Trump Vote
There is no room in our White House for a misogynistic bully who degrades and shames and destroys women and who, by example, makes it acceptable for others to do the same.
46
I’m sliding gently into 46 today with coffee and contemplation. My birthday is a time in which I find myself reflective, introspective, even a bit melancholy. Don’t get me wrong… aging doesn’t concern me. I’m learning to love myself and my life a little more every day. It’s the wisdom and perspective that comes with […]
Firstborn
It is not a debilitating disease. It is not a death. It is not a permanent loss or a mistake that can never be undone. But sending your firstborn off to college is not nothing. People have often asked us these questions… Was having four kids harder than having three? Was going from man-to-man to […]
When We Were Young
We lived at Chris’s family farm, the three of us. Sam was the 6th generation Willis to inhabit the 100-year-old farmhouse. We tore out old ceilings, built bigger closets, painted every surface that could be prepped and sanded. We sang and danced a lot then, that cerulean-eyed, 10-pound baby in my arms or strapped to […]
Graduation Day
When those four babies of mine still fit in my arms, I said I’d never forget. The smell of their heads, the soft of their skin, the curve of their toes, their paper-thin fingernails. But the truth is, I have. The details elude me now. Sometimes they come back to me in bits and pieces, […]
Dandelion Dreams
When I was little, I’d use them as yellow war paint, crushing stripes on my hands and cheeks and occasionally on my nose. Then I’d grab crabapples from the trees and ambush the neighborhood boys who left cigarette butts in my backyard fort. Later, we’d all become friends again over an after dinner game of […]